Anna Mendoza (Linguistics) held a 2023 HRI Summer Faculty Fellowship, during which she worked with a school community liaison who speaks Lingala, French, and English to interview a representative sample of dual immersion parents—about 30 of the approximately 70 families. Through bottom-up thematic coding, she investigated parents’ reasons for enrolling their children in the program, their investment in French as a foreign or heritage language, and how they perceived the interaction between home and school. The broader aim of the research was to use qualitative, longitudinal methods to study a cohort of students, identifying key factors in promoting language acquisition and investment in learning a (relatively) less commonly taught language.

Learn more about HRI’s Summer Faculty Fellowships, which provide an infusion of resources designed to jumpstart or fuel an ongoing research project, undertake course development, or pursue a professional training opportunity over the summer months.

What is unique about your research on this topic?

This is a very broad question, and I do think my work has more similarities than differences to other work in my field in terms of angle and methodology… which is nothing to be ashamed of; conventions are a way of meeting professional standards in scholarship. I study bi/multilingualism in schools, through ethnography (classroom observations), and interviews. I’m interested in people’s investment in maintaining their heritage languages and learning foreign languages, and in the quality of the provisions that are made to help people learn English. I combine longitudinal, multi-informant primary research with secondary research to situate the findings in broader historical and political developments.

If I had to speak to “what makes me different” (maybe not unique, but somewhat rare) as a researcher is that I am interested mostly in the practical impact of my research over any (claims to) novel findings and/or advancing theory. Perhaps this comes from my undergraduate major in English literature and creative writing: there is really not much “new” about the human condition, only variations in space and time. So I’m more focused on the practical aspect of the research. Which is to say, did my findings reach an audience and thereby improve practice, or change attitudes, or clear up misconceptions?

What drives your interest in this research?

I stay motivated over time because I believe my research has an impact on stakeholders. It matters to keeping alive dual language/bilingual education in an under-funded, largely English monolingual small Midwestern town. Another project I’m doing as the coordinator of the MA TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) practicum, is about beginning ESL (English as a second language) classes for refugee learners (who are served by our MA TESOL practicum students). This research project likewise has different groups of stakeholders: I need to research how to continually improve my MA students’ practicum experience, as well as the learning experience and outcomes of our English learners, many of whom are beginners with no prior experience in print literacy.

Solving these problems—how to effectively advocate for bilingual education or how to overcome major instructional challenges in TESOL—keeps me up at night. Not always in a good way, but in a meaningful way. It is worth mentioning that there is little published TESOL research on how to teach beginners with little/no prior print literacy, such as adult refugees, and this leads to a lack of professional training in this area. Because TESOL researchers largely ignore this learner population, the literature in the field of adult community ESOL is very sparse; it is not adequately serving the needs of many teachers and learners in this country who would like some guidance from researchers or some theoretical principles. Which is to say, I believe we should investigate real, rather than rhetorically constructed, research gaps… which when investigated have practical import.

How did the summer fellowship support your work?

I interviewed 30 families in Urbana-Champaign who sent their kids to the French-English dual language program at Yankee Ridge Elementary. I collected evidence that what is most valuable about the program to the French-speaking parents is its ability to provide for literacy skills development and content learning in French, which they would not otherwise get in an English-transitional bilingual program or a regular ESL program. For English-speaking parents, it’s the immersion experience, which is a rare educational opportunity in Champaign-Urbana’s largely English-monolingual environment. Combined with my classroom observations about the quality and systematicity of instruction, this helps with advocacy to keep the program going.

Editor's note: This story first appeared on the Humanities Research Institute blog.